


false faces

by imposterhuman



Series: angsty post-endgame drabbles [12]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Gamora Feels, Gamora needs a hug, Gen, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, POV Gamora (Marvel), Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), because gamora disappears at the end of endgame but she goes with the guardians here, everything else is the same, gamora & nebula friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21652780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imposterhuman/pseuds/imposterhuman
Summary: When it was all over, Gamora pretended.
Relationships: Gamora & Guardians of the Galaxy Team, Gamora/Peter Quill (Implied)
Series: angsty post-endgame drabbles [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1344337
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	false faces

**Author's Note:**

> an angst piece that doesnt feature tony?? by me?? unheard of
> 
> but no, i was actually really pissed about gamora in endgame. i loved her in gotg, shes one of my favorites from that franchise, but i have no heckin idea how theyre gonna bring her back for gotg3 in a way that doesnt feel like theyre replacing one gamora with another. like it or not, nine years (and i guess 5 of them dead) is a _lot_ of development for a person, especially going from assassin to teammate. im not sure how they expect to shove her back into the dynamic without it feeling disingenuous, ya know?
> 
> anyway enjoy my take on gamora!!

When it was all over, Gamora pretended. 

She returned to space with the ragtag band that called themselves hers, and she faked it. When they forgot who she was, confusing her with the _other_ her, she smiled and pretended to remember their stories. It was easier to occupy a space, however ill-shaped, than to try to carve her own niche in this tight-knit group. And Gamora had been taught well; she knew how to force herself to fit.

It was a perfect mask- almost. Sometimes, she slipped. Confusion creased her forehead when Quill told another stupid anecdote. Fear curled her fingers around the handle of her sword when Drax came too close. Even Groot, who she was told she adored, didn’t evoke much emotion in her. But she covered her lapses with too-wide smiles and teasing looks and slept easy at night knowing the crew couldn’t tell the difference.

(That was a lie. She hadn’t slept easy since the “balancing” of her people.) 

Only Nebula saw through her. Only her sister, the one she’d almost killed a hundred times over. She was the reason Nebula was mostly metal, she and her refusal to show mercy, her fear of being changed, her desire to be the best. Nebula didn’t hold it against her (not anymore), but she _should_ have. But Nebula refused to treat her like anything but the sister they were both so starved for, and Gamora was too weak to resist. 

Gamora did not deserve this redemption that the group seemed to have forgotten _she_ didn’t earn. She’d never thought, not with her decades under Thanos, that nine short years- five of them spent _dead_ \- could have changed someone into a person worth loving, but somehow, other her had done it.

And Gamora couldn’t help but to hate her for it.

It seemed… paradoxical, to hate the her that wasn’t her, to hate who she used to and could be and also hate who she _was_ , but she managed anyway. Hatred was an emotion she knew well. It choked her in her nightmares of purple hands and golden swords, spilling out of her like the blood of her people. Gamora didn’t know much anymore, not in this strange future that wasn’t hers, but she knew hatred.

But she swallowed it, kept it hidden and buried deep in her chest. She had practice at that, too. Thanos never suspected that his daughter dreamed of her knife in his throat, and these Guardians would never know how much she hated them for loving the her that wan’t. They loved her enough to accept a cheap replacement that didn't quite match up with the real thing and it made her _sick_. 

The next time Quill smiled at her like he knew her, she chose a planet. The next time Drax tried to celebrate a victory with her, she gathered her things as secretly as she could. The next time Rocket offered to upgrade her weapons, a trust he only extended to his family, she found a ship willing to take her.

Nebula kissed her forehead before she left. Gamora wasn’t sure why she thought she could hide anything from her sister, whose black eyes had always been open too wide. 

“Be safe, sister,” she said in that gravelly voice of hers. It was rough with an emotion Gamora had never heard from her before. Memories of her own Nebula, dead with a blaster hole through her chest, haunted her still, and she wondered if her Nebula could ever have been her sister in the way this Nebula was. She didn't know the answer, but she hoped so. “I can buy you three days before they follow.”

Gamora smiled, but there was little happiness in it. She was too lost for that. “I only need one to disappear,” she reminded Nebula. "Even though you were always better at it than me."

“You might have gotten rusty,” Nebula shrugged, the ghost of a smirk on her lips. “Take your day, before they get back.”

“Thank you, sister,” said Gamora. There were a thousand unspoken words between them, apologies and love and hate all jumbled into one indecipherable mass, but she couldn’t get any of them out of her throat. “I’ll see you again.”

Nebula looked away, out the window and towards the stars. She didn’t speak again.

Gamora slipped into the shadows with shame dogging her steps but freedom closer than it had been since she’d left Terra. She knew she was taking the coward's way out, sneaking away while the crew was on a supply run, but there was no way they'd have let her go otherwise. They loved the other her too much. But Gamora wasn't her, and she couldn't keep up the lie anymore.

The Guardians’ ship grew smaller and smaller out the window of the shitty cargo ship she was stowed away on as she tore away the last vestiges of the other her like broken armor. Alone and unwatched, Gamora breathed.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what yall think!! comments and kudos make me smile :))
> 
> yell at me on tumblr [@imposter-human](https://imposter-human.tumblr.com/)


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